Photographer Yao Lu's "New Landscapes' Series Comments on China's High Levels of Pollution

A quick look at these compositions by Chinese photographer Yao Lu may have you thinking that they are traditional landscape paintings. They portray New Landscapes, currently on display at the Bruce Silverstein Gallery, envisioned by the artist. Most of the cues are present: clouds over mountain tops, pagodas, trees, rivers, terrain, and the iconic red artist's signature stamps. But look a little longer and you will begin to notice that the hills are actually mounds of trash covered with green construction netting. By arranging piles from landfill materials to resemble natural landscapes, the artist completes his pieces through editing in other elements commonly seen in such paintings of nature. The material of his actual subjects, trash and not nature, refers to China's extreme rates of pollution that may potentially destroy its landscape.